Ohio Legal Nonprofit Fails to Pause State’s Inmate Mail Policy

An Ohio corrections department policy that requires prison staff to photocopy each piece of legal mail sent to inmates can remain in place during a constitutional challenge from the Ohio Justice and Policy Center.

Although the center has standing to assert its attorneys’ rights to communicate with their incarcerated clients, “it does not have a cognizable right to communicate with them confidentially,” Judge Douglas R. Cole of the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio said in a Tuesday order.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections in December 2024 instituted a policy after some letters sent ...